


the dead talk

by WickedWalrus



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Elisabeth/Will mentioned, Gen, Kinda, Will&Jack mentioned, also yearning, cannot believe yearning wasnot a tag, first fic, no real pairings in the fic, set somewhere in the years between At Worlds End and Dead Men Tell No Tales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28852938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedWalrus/pseuds/WickedWalrus
Summary: During his years as the captain of the Flying Dutchman Will wonders on mortality and old friends.
Relationships: Elizabeth Swann/Will Turner(Mentioned)
Kudos: 8





	the dead talk

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a beta and english is not my first language so even tho i tried to proofread it if you find some typos or janky english please bear that in mind.

Will hasn't spoken to Jack in years.

The captaincy of the Duchman is a heavy burden and it grows heavier on his shoulders each day as he sees more dead people in a week than live ones in a year. The resposibility of taking them to the other side and the consequences of failing said task don't get any easier either. The duty of the captain of the Dutchman wasn't made with a lover of a mortal in mind and it shows, he feels the longing for his wife and their sweet child more acutely each day and when he finally gets to see them, he feels he has missed too much. Elisabeth arrives each year with more lines on her face and new scars on her hands and the knowledge he wasn't there to see them appear in person aches. And as their young child sprouts from a small bundle of joy into a sprightly youth and to think he has to learn of his first steps, his first words, his first love all second hand! Every missed milestone feels like a personal failure.

Of Jack he sees even less but his old friend is hard to forget nonetheless. "Dead men tell no tales" is an old saying and one clearly coined by people who never had the dubious honour of spending any kind of time with the dead themselves. 

There are wispers every now and then. Mutterings of bitter dead men who haven't yet had the time to let go of their eartly grudges. Every now and then he catches a word here, a newly departed pirate muttering about a mad captain trying to do the impossible; a whine there, a young naval officer whispering about an impossible escape that never should have worked and that caused terrible casualties on their side! Sometimes he even catches the words "Mad Jack" or "Damned Sparrow" from the mouths of great pirates and somehow the words always seems to be spat out with that distinctive tang of bitter you only hear when someone who thinks themself very smart gets outsmarted by someone they concider a complete idiot. These are the ones that really make him wonder. Was he this naive back then? In the beginning when he had just met Jack and it was easier to attribute all his accomplishements to madness and sheer dumb luck? Because as the years go by and the bitter mutterers pile up on his ship, in disbelief they were bested by the worst pirate ever seen, it is still ultimately always them who end on the deck of his ship while the scorned captain keeps sailing on, in the end undefeated.

That isn't to say no one has ever gotten the best of Jack before, even Will had managed to play him a few times while still in the land of the living, but somehow one fact just hasn't sunken into public conciousness even after all these years. How over the years, every person that has caused the man some real actual trouble has always enden up meeting Will on the deck of the Duchman while the pirate they keep scorning hasn't come to see him once.


End file.
